SF revives fight over controversial state bill that...

1of2Supervisor Gordon Mar meets with reporters after a committee hearing at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. on Wednesday, April 24, 2019. Mar is proposing a measure to add a 1.12% payroll tax on stock-based compensation on the November ballot.Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

2of2State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, left, discusses his housing measure during a committee hearing Wednesday, April 24, 2019, in Sacramento, Calif. Wiener's bill, SB50, that would increase housing near transportation and job hubs was approved by the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, after it was merged with SB4, a measure by State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg.Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP

San Francisco officials are poised to oppose for the second time this year a contentious state bill that would allow for denser housing near public transit and job centers.

The city’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee voted unanimously Thursday on a largely ceremonial resolution reiterating San Francisco’s objection to SB50, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. The resolution called for amendments to preserve community input in the planning process and require developers to pay larger concessions.

Though SB50 was shelved in May by the state Senate Appropriations Committee, Wiener is expected to revive SB50 in 2020.

In the face of a statewide housing crisis, SB50 would keep cities from limiting housing density within a half-mile of a rail station and a quarter-mile of a high-frequency bus stop. Building housing near transit is intended to cut down on car commuting, which helps fuel climate change and traffic congestion.

The bill’s opponents — including most of the Board of Supervisors — argue that SB50 would induce an unchecked luxury construction boom that would fatten the pockets of developers while exacerbating the displacement and gentrification of vulnerable, low-income communities. The bill includes some tenant-protection measures, which the board could choose to strengthen if it chose to do so.

The bill “centers on the interests of land owners and developers, and not the people that need to be housed,” said Deepa Varma, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union. “This bill is designed to increase land values, not to increase affordability.”

But supporters say its the opponents who are playing into the hands of wealthy homeowners.

Many of the bill’s advocates also see opposition to SB50 as a way for opponents to stop denser development in places populated with single-family homes — including San Francisco’s west side — which have become a symbol of wealth and exclusion.

“The supervisors are aligning themselves with wealthy homeowners. They talk a big progressive game, but their record and their rhetoric aligns much more with wealthy homeowners,” said Todd David, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition.

With cities failing to meaningfully address housing affordability across California, pro-housing advocates have championed SB50 as an essential tool to override local policies that they see as responsible for the crisis. In San Francisco’s case, SB50 allows for housing to be built in places where it has long been outlawed by the city’s zoning.

“This is all a show,” David said. “There is nothing Sen. Wiener could offer that would get the board to support SB50. This is the playbook of the Palo Altos and the Beverly Hills and the Cupertinos — all of those exclusive neighborhoods use.”

The bill would also raise height limits to roughly four stories within a half-mile of fixed-rail stops and to about five stories within a quarter-mile of them. The city would retain the ability to conduct environmental, design and other reviews and would keep in place its rules around affordable housing rates for new developments.

Supervisor Gordon Mar, who chairs the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, also reiterated concerns that the bill would force cities like San Francisco to cede local controls over development to the state. Mar’s criticism echoes that of many wealthy suburbs in Marin and San Mateo County, which have cited “local control” in their opposition to the bill.

In light of the bill’s reemergence, Mar said the city needed to “clearly state our need to give communities a seat at the table, to capture the value created when we (create denser housing) and use that for affordable housing and other community developments.”

The city already has the highest affordable housing mandates in the country for market-rate projects.

Thursday’s resolution states that San Francisco will stand opposed to SB50 unless Wiener amends the bill to defer to localized plans for community development, identify and exempt communities at risk of displacement from the bill’s provisions and tie transportation funding to housing development to help ensure transit infrastructure grows in concert with added development.

The Board of Supervisors passed another resolution opposing the measure, barring amendments, in April. The full board will take a vote on the resolution at its Dec. 17 meeting. Mar said Wiener had met with members of the board last week, but did not say what types of amendments may be in the works.

“Supervisor Mar’s resolution does nothing to address our housing crisis. Instead, it is yet another non-binding resolution and little more than symbolic political theater,” Wiener said in a statement, which highlighted that it’s now illegal to build apartments in much of Mar’s district.

“I encourage Supervisor Mar to focus on housing solutions in his district and elsewhere, instead of introducing yet another non-binding resolution.”

Despite the board’s opposition, support for building denser housing along transit corridors appears to be growing. An annual state-of-the-city poll released by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce in February revealed that 74% of the survey’s 500 respondents supported an unnamed state bill that would among other things, prevent cities from restricting apartment construction within a half mile of a transit station, like BART or Caltrain.

Dominic Fracassa covers San Francisco City Hall for The Chronicle. He previously worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily Journal, a legal affairs newspaper. He started in news in his home state of Michigan, where he worked as a news director of 103.9 WLEN.